THE NEW YORKER proudly. "Our mayor-and so was his father. He is also the Minister of Tourism of France." "Why aren't we staying here?" Margot asks me. The N egresco is the grand hôtel de luxe-white dome, pink roofs, Art Nouveau décor- founded by the Rumanian entrepre- neur Henri N egresco in 1912; once- crowned heads and film stars stayed there. "N ext time you will," Antoine says tactfully. "Boy and I used to go to the Four-In-Hand-or was it the Hare and Hounds? He showed me the form sheet he was keeping on the dogs at the local track." He sighs dramati- cally. "The apartment on the Rue Gu- bernatis," I say. "Was it opposite a bank?" "Yes," says Antoine. "The bank is still there." One implication is that the bank might easily not have been there, such is the tide of modernization and redevelopment sweeping Nice. " And that tennis match," I con- tinue. "Do you remember taking us to it?" "Ah, yes-it was in Cannes." Our lives overlap. Our stay with Antoine and Lili for that one week is in Margot's and my memory as much as his stay in Hun is in Antoine's. Margot remembers the tiles in Lili's kitchen and the way she sliced toma- toes and sprinkled them with herbes de Provence. I remember the light com- ing in through the louvered shutters of our bedroom, and the rough linen sheets on our oak-headboarded bed. I remind Antoine (we are sitting in a café now, drinking coffee, with cars going by, palm fronds waving, shim- mer of sea beyond), "The organizers had sold too many tickets for the match. There were fights between people who had tickets for the same seat. Gendarmes broke up the fights and sat down in the seats. People in the crowd outside were standing on the roofs of Rolls- Royces and sitting on the booms of construction cranes, which they swung overhead. Some were tearing down the fine privet hedge around the ground." Margot says, "We also went to a restaurant near Saint-Paul." "Les Oliviers, perhaps," says An- toine. "That's the one," Margot says. "We ate outside. Roast lamb, grilled on an open fire, quite pink, with garlic. Stuffed tomatoes. Wine and then champagne. Some musicians walked in from the road, and one played on an 61 .... "- "' ... - - '''-- ' '4. ..... .... , ' ..... ........ "' - ÿ' ... .. .. , ., Jj. '\ 1 '\ \ " .,0. lß) fROM GMIN80PRQO DON S N. CO IIp ,N It's crystal-.clear. It's a bit more expensIVe, but for a crisp Gin & Tonic, the \Vorld comes to Gordon's